my chickens have been laying well through the winter but for some reason i have been getting quite a few (well probably more rather than less) eggs with runny whites in them just wondered if anyone knew why thi was happening

Could be the cold temperatures, if your not collecting the eggs frequently enough.

We had a hen go off and lay in a bush - took us all of 3 days to see where she went. Opened all the eggs - runny whites, except the 3rd egg, which we saw her lay. It was fine. This was during the very cold spell a week ago.
So we have to surmise that the eggs being left in the cold.....made the egg white runny.
All the hens laying in the shed are fine, the temp in here being higher.

The 'cold' theory is interesting. I've only noticed watery whites this last few weeks (not my hens, mine are slacking ) and we are currently having the coldest weather I've experienced in the three winters we've been here. So there you go

think i may have been lucky with my hens although they not laying one each every day as they do in the summer i am yet to have a day with no eggs. so even if i do get quite a few with runny whites i suppose i should not complain!

Hi Everyone, I was Reading your posts with considerable interest, as my girls are suffering the same plight. I did some research and came up with one possibility for watery egg whites that has not been mentioned here at all. Are your girls getting to much Vanadium...? It is a mineral found in some vegtables. I feed our girls on a diet of pellets, mash, which I mix with tap hot water (which they go bananas for) and 2 carrots and a good helping of spinnach per day, between our nine girls. When I saw the article on vanadium, I wondered just out of curiosity if spinnach may contain said mineral and yes it does, quite a high proportion. I have since cut the spinnach out of their diets and I am awaiting results with interest. Other vegtables also contain vanadium, so I suggest anyone interested take a look at the article. I just entered vandium into the google search engine and found it that way. Some articles say it is because the egg is too fresh or contradictingly too old. As a cause both those seem unlikely to me as not all our girls are suffering from watery whites and we have tried all their eggs at diferent ages after being laid, with the same watery result. I have to say at this point that not all of them like spinnach either. It's deffinitely a head scratcher.....and I want to go back to the days of beautifully rotund poached eggs.

the cold is nothing to do with it, infact commercial breeding farms keep the eggs chilled unti they are collected by the hatchery lorry.
The easiest way to maintain eggs at high quality is to store them in cartons in the frigde as soon as possible after they are laid.Clean eggs, free of visible defects of the shell and contents, will then remain at high quality for up to three months and will still be as 'fresh' as eggs stored for seven days at room temperature.They can be stored for longer periods but the quality will begin to deteriorate noticeably.
The cartons reduce water loss and help prevent flavours from other foods from being absorbed into the eggs and remember only clean uncracked eggs should be stored.Mucky eggs should be used immediately and under no circumstances should eggs for in-shell storage be washed as this removes the surface bloom and makes the eggs more susceptible to attack by microbes and keep dirty or cracked eggs separate to avoid contamination of the clean eggs.If you must clean them do as they at the breeding farms and use some very fine sand paper on them.
Also a nervous or flighty bird often lays an egg with thinner albumen layers(the white) just due to the stress levels